The Library
1577 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
1–100
2 works
c. AD 20–40
Greek
Legum Allegoriae
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
Three books working verse by verse through Genesis 2 and 3, where Adam is the mind, Eve is sense-perception, the serpent is pleasure, and the garden is the soul's own condition.
c. AD 30–45; survives complete only in Armenian
Greek, surviving in Armenian
Quaestiones et Solutiones
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
A running catechism on Genesis and Exodus in question-and-answer form: why this word and not another, why this number, why God is said to repent when he cannot.
201–300
7 works
c. 204
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A verse-by-verse exposition written during persecution, arguing from the four kingdoms that the end is not as near as the excited were claiming, and dwelling on Susanna as a figure of the church.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Hypostasis of the Archons
Anonymous
A retelling of Genesis 1 to 6 in which the rulers who made the world cannot see the light above them, Eve is the spiritual one who wakes Adam, and the serpent is the instructor. Norea, Seth's sister, burns down the ark and is rescued from the rulers by the angel Eleleth.
c. 220–230
Greek
De Principiis
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The first attempt at a complete Christian account of God, creation, freedom, and the end of all things — argued speculatively and offered as exploration rather than settled doctrine.
c. 235; recovered at Tura in 1941
Greek
Peri Pascha
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
An argument that pascha does not mean passion, as everyone was saying, but passage — and that the lamb eaten in haste with the loins girded is the Word consumed by a soul already on the road out.
c. 231–248
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
An immense line-by-line exposition, begun to answer a Valentinian commentary on the same gospel, spending a whole book on the opening words alone.
c. 238–244
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
Sixteen sermons preached to an ordinary congregation, reading the days of creation, the ark, and the patriarchs for their moral and spiritual sense as much as their literal one.
c. 246
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
A late commentary, partly surviving in Greek and partly in an old Latin version, patient with the literal sense and unusually attentive to textual variants.
301–400
4 works
c. 364–367
Latin
Hilary of Poitiers · c. 310–367
Expositions of selected psalms written after his return from exile, applying Greek exegetical method to the Latin psalter.
c. 375–390
Greek
Diodore of Tarsus · d. c. 390
A reading of the Psalms that begins by refusing allegory outright: the historical setting comes first, and a psalm about David is about David. Where a further sense is admitted it is theoria, a heightened view of the same events, never a meaning that dissolves them.
c. 380–385
Latin
Liber Regularum
Tyconius · c. 330–c. 390
Seven rules for reading scripture consistently — on the Lord and his body, on the bipartite church, on promise and law, on species and genus, on times, on recapitulation, and on the devil and his body.
c. 390
Greek
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
Ninety sermons working through the whole gospel, insisting on the plain sense of the text and turning relentlessly to the poor at the church door.
401–500
3 works
c. 406–420
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A hundred and twenty-four sermons through the fourth gospel, including the great treatment of the woman taken in adultery and the repeated call to love and do what you will.
392–418
Latin
Enarrationes in Psalmos
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
The only complete patristic commentary on all one hundred and fifty psalms, mostly preached, reading them as the voice of the whole Christ — head and body — speaking together.
c. 393–435
Greek
Isidore of Pelusium · c. 360–c. 435
Around two thousand very short letters of exegesis, moral advice, and blunt rebuke, addressed to bishops, officials, and monks alike.
601–700
2 works
c. 630–634
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
Sixty-five answers to difficulties in scripture, each opening into an argument about the passions, the fall, and how the incarnation heals the will.
c. 670–690
Latin
The school of Theodore and Hadrian
Classroom notes from the school at Canterbury, explaining biblical words with reference to Greek, Syriac usage, and the actual geography of the Near East.
701–800
1 work
c. 709–716
Latin
The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735
A patient exposition of the third gospel that marks in the margin which father each borrowed passage comes from, so a reader can tell Bede's own words from Ambrose's.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1085–1100
Greek
Theophylact of Ohrid · c. 1050–after 1107
Clear, compressed commentaries on the gospels and epistles distilling Chrysostom and the earlier fathers into something a parish priest could actually use.
1101–1200
3 works
c. 1112–1117
Latin
Rupert of Deutz · c. 1075–1129
The whole of scripture read as the successive work of Father, Son, and Spirit, in forty-two books following the Bible from Genesis to the last judgement.
1135–1153
Latin
Sermones super Cantica Canticorum
Bernard of Clairvaux · 1090–1153
Eighty-six sermons that never get past the second chapter, reading the Song as the soul's courtship by the Word and building from it a full account of humility, desire, and the degrees of love.
c. 1150–1171
Syriac
Dionysius bar Salibi · d. 1171
Commentaries on the whole Bible giving both the literal and the spiritual sense, alongside treatises against Muslims, Jews, Armenians, and Chalcedonians.
1501–1600
1 work
c. 1540–1564
Latin
John Calvin · 1509–1564
Commentaries on nearly the whole Bible, written to lucid brevity, attending to the author's intention and refusing to find doctrine where the text does not put it.
24 of 1577 works